


Adamantus

by saratogaroad



Series: Crystalline Shards [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/M, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2018-12-03 04:43:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11524806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saratogaroad/pseuds/saratogaroad
Summary: When Noctis is three years old, Regis takes ill. The doctor tells her that he will recover, that all will be well.It isn't.Aulea Lucis Caelum is left to raise a son on her own, knowing that a Kingdom depends on her strength and will to survive.She will not lose him, too.





	1. Chapter 1

When Noctis is three years old, Regis takes ill. The Citadel Physician says it is simply stress that makes him cough, that he will recover with rest and time and plenty of love from his family.

Aulea wants to fire the man for lying to her.

Regis does not get better. He gets worse, the cough becoming a hack that steals all his energy, that keeps him contained to bed. Aulea, deep brown hair just beginning to streak through with gray, sends for doctor after doctor. They come from as far as Accordo, but none can find the cause. 

None can find a cure.

She writes to Queen Sylva of Tenebrae, begs not as Queen to Queen but Wife to Widow, _please help me_ , and though Sylva's reply is full of her own love and sympathy and desire to help, there is nothing she can do. If it is not the Scourge--and none of the worsening symptoms Aulea has described in detail speak of the Scourge--then there is nothing she can do. Tenebrae remains a staunch ally to Lucis, and Aulea gains a true friend.

This does not prepare her for losing her husband.

One hot summer night, the desert heat of Leide all around them, Aulea sees a trail of golden light in the air above Regis' bed, which she sits beside with Noctis sleeping in her arms. She looks up, and her eyes well with tears.

Etro's gate hovers, wavering like a desert mirage, above her coughing husband. 

He is not long for this world. She has not long to say goodbye.

She stands, and across the room, Cor Leonis walks to her.

"Your Majesty--" He doesn't have the time to finish as she presses Noctis to his chest. His arms come up automatically; Cor has helped change Noctis' diapers, kept him from trouble. She can see no better man to watch her son in this trying time. Still, she thinks, he deserves the truth.

"Regis," She whispers, "is passing. Please, take Noctis away from here."

Cor, barely into his manhood and yet stronger than even he realizes, stares for a moment as if she just told him the sun is going to disappear. But then he draws a breath, and though his eyes are welling with tears, his lower lip trembling, his grip is firm and he salutes her with a hand across his chest, across Noctis' back.

Then he strides from the room, quietly pulling the door shut behind him.

Aulea lets out a shaky breath and returns to Regis' side. With skirts rustling, she pulls herself up onto his bed, ignoring the scent of sick and the way his breath rattles in his chest.

"'Lea?" He whispers, skin cold as he turns his head against hers. She pulls the blankets up a little higher.

"I'm here." She tells him, not telling him about the gate that strengthens with every passing moment. He knows of her talent, her curse to see passing souls as they make the journey from the living to the dead.

He likely knows this is his time, but his body is failing him. He has no strength left to speak, but there is nothing he could say that she doesn't already know. She lays beside her husband, holding his hand as tightly as she can. His returning squeeze is faint, barely there. She lays her head beside his.

"It's alright, my love," She tells him in a voice that wavers but does not break, "If you need to...you can go."

His eyes open slowly, gray-blue that has passed to their son. She meets his gaze, smiles, and knows that he knows she loves him. It is enough.

It will never be enough.

"I will...await you," He whispers, eyes fluttering closed. "In the Beyond."

His grip on her hand goes slack. Aulea turns her head, hides her face in his neck, and cries. For a few minutes, she is not the Queen of Lucis, nor is she Noctis' mother. She is Regis' love, his partner, his confidant.

His widow.

She allows herself to mourn, great heaving sobs that only the walls will hear as she clings to the blankets, his silken sleepwear, and refuses to let go. Her breath comes in pants, her heart a broken thing 'neath her breast that beats even when she doesn't want it to, because how is she supposed to _live_ without him? How is she supposed to run a kingdom and raise a child without him? She has none of his powers, none of his talents. She can run a house, can sew a dress in a day, can fight as well as Cyril Scientia with a lance and the Elemancy Regis had taught her to use, but a _kingdom_? As a single parent?

Gods. She can't do this.

She has to do this.

For what feels like forever, she does not move. She sobs and holds on, refuses to let go, only then...she does. With a decidedly un-ladylike sniff, she pulls back. Straightens out the soaked shoulder of his top and pulls the blanket up. She reaches out, putting a hand to his still warm cheek. His beard rasps against her palm; were it not for his stillness, he could be merely sleeping. 

She knows he is not. 

Eyes welling with tears once more, Aulea bends forward and presses a kiss to her beloved's forehead.

"My heart will be with you," She repeats from their vows, "Until even the Beyond is no more."

Then with a strength she did not know she still had, Aulea Lucis Caelum stands from her husband's death bed, straightens her skirts, and walks tall from the room.

Three days later, though all are dressed in mourning black, Insomnia rings with a single cheer:

 _Long Live The Queen_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The die is cast. Aulea makes a decision, and an enemy.

In the days that follow Regis' death, Aulea comes to learn many things. His journals are full of things about the city, things she did not know about her kingdom, her crown, her husband.

She also learns that Bahamut, Lord of Dragons and Highest of the Six, is a complete and utter farce of a God. He stands before her in the Crystal's magic, looms over her by being tall as the Citadel, and doesn't even have the decency to come down to her level.

Well, she thinks to herself, she _did_ just charge right in to the crystal. But it had been done to shield Noctis, who'd escaped from his attendant and gone toddling about the Citadel unwatched and unprotected straight to the Crystal's chamber, where it waited for another Heir to swallow up for power.

(Had Aulea known this thing was here, that it wanted her son when it had already taken her husband, she'd have taken him to Galdin and never looked back.)

As it stands, her ears are ringing, the air around them booming with Bahamut's otherworldly voice.

"Noctis is Chosen, King of Kings," he says nearly as casually as if her were talking about the weather, "This fate cannot be changed."

He means to sacrifice her son, as all Lucian Kings before him have sacrificed to preserve the Wall, the world. As Regis had sacrificed, his health and vitality until a simple cough became enough to do him in.

Did none of them have a mother to stand up for them, she wonders between one heartbeat and the next. And what would Regis have done in her place? Would he have sacrifed their son for a prophecy two thousand years old?

She thinks she knows, but as the magic of the Lucian rulers from before swirls around her, she's suddenly not sure. But she knows what _she_ will do--must do--and so Aulea takes a breath, closes her eyes.

"Go to hell," she enunciates perfectly, consonants hard around her teeth. The surprise ripples through the magic, this ethereal court having not expected such vitriol from the usually soft spoken queen. She pounces on the silence, "Was it not enough for you to take my husband? Now you'll have my son as well?!" She stamps a heeled foot, magic springing to her fingers, "No! You shall not have him!"

"Aulea--" Regis' voice whispers, and though her heart sings to hear it again, she bristles. Her cheeks flush and her eyes widen

"And now you dare to use my beloved against me? Is there no end to your malice?!"

Bahamut has drawn back, startled. His voice booms around them like thunder as he says, 

"The King of Kings must sacrifice to end the Accursed and return light to Eos--"

"Because you care so much for Eos!" she yells in his face, "When all you need are people to worship you!"

"Noctis is-"

"Just a boy! He outruns his attendants and is learning to bargain for two bedtime stories instead of one!" She counters, "And I will not let you use him for something you could solve yourself!"

"Let us?" Bahamut rumbles. Fear ripples through the magic, voices all around her calling her name, begging her to flee, as he continues, "Foolish mortal. You would defy your Gods? You overreach yourself."

"No." Aulea says firmly, stepping forward, unafraid of the magic she can feel gathering all around them, "I overreach _you_. If you think I intend to let you do this," She takes another step. Bahamut seems smaller now, but he looms over her. Magic swirls around, and for just a moment she smells Regis' cologne as the former Kings and Queens of Lucis throw their power behind her. Wind rips at her hair, her dress, and carries her voice with them, "Then you underestimate humanity!"

She snaps a hand out, ice coating her fingers, and sends Blizzaga flying. Bahamut counters with a burst of heat, ice melting all around as magic gathers ahead of her, a star of Flare glowing brighter and brighter in front of his massive shape, as if called from his heart. Does he even have one, she wonders. Aulea finds herself rooted, unable to move beyond throwing her arms up in a futile gesture of defense. Blizzard domes around her, a fragile shield, but it cannot hold shape against the heat. She raises both arms, closes her eyes as the light becomes too bright. This is where she is to meet her end, she realizes, and Noctis' last image of his mother will be the Crystal taking her.

No. _No_! She will not abandon her son! Not this day!

With a scream, Aulea pours everything she has into the spell. There are hands on her shoulders, holding her upright, offering thier steel to her back. _Cast it now_ , Regis whispers in the wind, and she swears she can feel his arms around her again. Aulea chokes back a sob, pours all her unspent grief into the spell--Blizzard has always been honed by grief and loss--and lets it go.

Bahamut takes a Blizzaga to the face. Icy wind snaps around them, coating all those physical with a layer of ice and frost. His Flare spell, coated in spears of deadly ice, shatters like a dropped water glass. He stumbles back, casting her a look through his helmet, before he disappears. She knows better than to think this is the end of it, but her energy is spent.

With a sigh, Aulea collapses back into the Beyond.

When she opens her eyes again, she is staring up at her bedroom ceiling, the golden lights of souls all around her. There is warmth at her side and when she turns she has to swallow back tears of joy. Noctis is tucked against her, streaks of salt down his cheeks as he breathes evenly in sleep.

"He refused to let you go," Cyril says from her other side. Tucking her arm more tightly around her toddler, Aulea can only smile. She has more to plan for now, more to account for than she thought possible, and yet...

Watching her boy, she knows she can do this. She will do this. She turns her head. Cyril offers her a pensive look.

"Majesty?"

"Go to the Library, Cyril," She says calmly, "and find me every reference you can on the Accursed."

"Of course." He rises to stand, then stops. "May I ask this sudden interest?"

"We have a god to outsmart."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cyril is Ignis' uncle, who (as far as I know?) goes unnamed in canon. Name chosen both because it sounds proper and posh (much like Iggy's accent) and because it's the name of a dragon. An ice dragon. :3 Dragon, dragoon, yes Cyril (or his Uncle in general) is who I headcanon taught Iggy lances.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiva has always been fond of Humanity. That has not changed, nor shall it change.

"How is there no reference at all to one person?!" Asteria Amicitia barely keeps herself from shouting in the Citadel library. Across the table from her friend, Aulea sighs and thinks very unqueenly thoughts. They--and Cyril behind them, sitting on a ladder with his pale brown hair in his eyes--have been looking through the books for the past week.

They have found nothing. Nothing to learn who this Accursed truly is, nor the Six's plan for Noctis.

Noctis, who Aulea has left under the watchful eye of Cor nearby, sitting on a soft rug with Ignis, Cyril's young nephew, and Gladiolus, Clarus' equally young son. Looking at them, Auleas heart aches for Regis, his brothers, his people.

They can't rely on the wall any longer. Already it has failed in the outer edges of the city, driving the people closer and closer to the Citadel. The Crystal has rejected any attempts for Aulea to draw near, forcing her back with wave upon wave of magic, and more than once Noctis' attendants have told her that her toddling son has tried to reach the chamber, almost as if called to it by some siren of myth.

Or an overgrown, over-pompous dragon. Aulea frowns at the thought, returning to the book. Though they haven't been through every book in the Citadel's Library, they have been through many. Hundreds of mentions of the Crystal tell Aulea that perhaps some former King or Queen should have sent the thing toppling from the top of the Citadel, but there is no single mention of the Accursed, not what the name itself means.

Atop the ladder, Cyril sighs.

"Majesty," he says, "Perhaps it would be best to convene with Queen Sylva?" He begins to descend the ladder as she turns around to look at her. "The lineage of the Oracle has always been tied to the Six. She may know more than we do."

"Perhaps," Aulea looks up, out the window at the stormy sky. They do not have the time to waste scouring each and every book in the Citadel's three story library, "I'll draft a letter to her tonight--"

The air snaps cold, cold enough that she sees her next exhale.

"That will not be necessary, Queen of the Stone." A voice says. In a single motion, everyone turns. Cor and Clarus draw their swords, and Cyril strides to put himself between Aulea and this new intruder, a woman of tall stature with long dark hair straight down her back. Asteria stands up, as well trained as her husband and as equally defensive of her Queen.

"Who are you?" She asks this new woman, who simply inclines her head even as she keeps her eyes closed, her hands clasped peacefully before her.

"The Draconian," She says in a lilting voice, "would strike you down, Queen of the Stone."

"I'd like to see him try," Aulea is proud her voice does not waver. The woman smiles, but still does not answer Asteria's question. Aulea chances a look back over her shoulder, but Noctis has disappeared behind both boys once beside him and Cor besides. He will be safe. She turns her eyes back to to this woman, her old style of dress, the chill in the very air, and wonders. Though the Gods would sometimes take Messengers, gift them with their powers, there is something...odd about this woman. Something old, wise beyond her apparent age.

She remembers the stories, of the Six. How Shiva adored humanity. She stares at the woman, smiling fondly, and wonders how much truth is actually in those stories. Aulea opens her mouth to ask, but Asteria speaks instead--

"Then why aren't you striking her? Why are you helping us?" She asks, and the woman turns to her. Clarus chokes, reaches for his wife in the same instant that Aulea pushes Asteria behind her, but the womam only smiles

"The Future Oracle has asked it of me," She says simply, "And the Accursed is our burden to bear," she says, inclining her head to Noctis, barely peering out behind his friends, "not his. And..." her eyes, blue so deep they appear almost black, open to look directly into Aulea's. "...I am fond of those who call to ice first."

"Shiva," Cyril breathes. The woman closes her eyes once more.

"The name you seek," She says, and frost begins to form along every surface, their clothes, Aulea's eyelashes. She closes her eyes, body wracked with shivers, "Can be found alongside Izunia Lucis Caelum."

When Aulea opens her eyes again, frost and snow coat everything, everyone but the children who still shiver, and Shiva is gone. Aulea continues to shiver, but it is not entirely from the cold now.

Izunia Lucis Caelum, the First King. The founder of Lucis, of Insomnia. The name of the Accursed can be found alongside his, resting in the same line in the books. Perhaps a sibling, perhaps a spouse. 

The Accursed, Aulea realizes with a breath stealing jolt, can be none other than a Lucis Caelum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why couldn't Shiva give them the Accursed's name to begin with? Remember: Ardyn's been struck from record as a Caelum. Ardyn _Izunia_ would be a strange coincidence at this moment. Alongside Izunia, as a hint, sends them to look through the records of that time. From there...well. She leaves it to them. Fond doesn't mean solving all their problems~
> 
> Asteria Amicitia's name come from Aster, a genus of daisy-like flowers. It can also draw back to Astra, or "Star". Her parents were fond of the poetic, what can I say? (I couldn't find a canon name for her. WTF Square? Was FFXV a lesson in how not to treat female characters? Apparently!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stakes grow higher. A new ally joins the ranks.

_"Aulea," Regis whispers to her, his voice a thrum beneath her ear, his heartbeat steady and alive beneath her cheek. She clings to him, unwilling to part so suddenly, so soon. He runs a hand through her hair, the sylleblossom scent on the breeze overpowering his cologne. "Aulea," He repears, "You must wake."_

_"I can't leave you," She whispers into his robes, "Not again."_

_"You must," He says firmly. He does not let her go, either. "Noctis needs you."_

_She stirs. Noctis....she raises her head and meets his eyes. He smiles that gentle smile she fell in love with so long ago._

_"Wake."_

"Majesty!"

Aulea has long outgrown rolling out of bed like a gangly teenager, tangled in sheets and duvet alike. She has yet, however, to outgrow tangling herself in her own nightgown as Asteria yanks her out of bed. Her mind clings to Regis, to the dream that was not a dream, and she blinks.

"What's--"

"We're under attack!"

Someone screams. A maid or staffmember somewhere in the halls. Aulea jolts awake; with Asteria still holding her hand she bolts from the room and into pure chaos. People are scrambling away, running through smoke filled halls for the stairs and elevators down, away from fire that seems to cling to the halls, the curtains, the rugs, the tapestries. Something explodes with a wave of heat that leaves Aulea sun-sensitive.

Daemons cackle. The Crownsguard pull upon her magic to summon their weapons, the binding ritual of the Crystal long since severed until they have no choice but to pull on her directly. She wavers, unsteady on her feet, and takes a step forward. She hears, distantly, Asteria calling to her son. Gladiolus responds in kind, his voice growing louder, but Aulea does not turn.

Noctis' quarters are down the hall that is on fire. She takes a step forward.

"Noctis!" She shouts, voice shrill, "Noctis!"

"Aulea!" Asteria grabs her by the arm and pulls, "Aulea, we have to go!"

Aulea twists and pulls, fighting like a wild Couerl, trying to pull free. Asteria just holds on tighter, Gladiolus clinging to her leg.

"Aulea!" She shouts again.

"Where is my son?!"

"Cor's gone to get him!" Cyril has to shout to be heard over the roar of fire and guards, Ignis held to his hip as he grabs Aulea's other arm, "They'll meet us in the courtyard--quickly!"

"Noctis!" Aulea shouts again as they drag her, skirts and hair trailing, down the emergency stairs. She must catch her footing or fall and so she does; she gathers her skirts and runs down fifty flights of stairs in what feels like an eternity but is really under ten minutes. When they arrive, the Courtyard before the Citadel is full of people coughing or screaming for their loved ones. Asteria wraps an arm around her shoulders, holding Gladio to her hip.

"Majesty!"

Cor. Aulea turns and her heart sinks to her feet. Cor is alone and looks like his world has come down around him. 

"Where--" Her voice grows thick, tightens in her throat. "Where is Noctis?"

"The ways were blocked. I couldn't..."

Asteria gasps. Cyril, still holding Ignis to his chest, looks up with a curse. A window on the residential levels shatters in a ball of heat. 

Aulea feels her world beginning to crumble. Her knees tremble, threaten to give way. First her beloved, and now her son? What more will the world take from her? What more do the Gods want?

Would they accept her life in exchange? She presses a hand to her mouth to try and hold back the keening wail building, a living thing clawing its way up her throat.

"Anybody lose a prince?" A young voice pipes up. Everyone turns and then--

"Mama!" Noctis shouts, running on bare feet up the stairs and straight into Aulea's arms. She collapses to her knees around him, skirts soaking in the evening dew. He's sootstained and there's a scrape on his arm, but he is alive. She sobs into his hair and holds him close, rocking him back and forth in an effort that is really more to comfort herself than her brave little boy. He clings to her with all his might, refusing to let go even as she manages to pull in a breath, compose herself enough to look at his savior.

Stars, he's just a boy! 

Well, no, that's not fair. He's a young man, Galahdan by the look of his shaven and braided hairstyle, with kind eyes. He can't be any older than sixteen, soot-stained and hands reddened by heat, but his back is straight and he wears the soft night-black of the Crownsguard. 

She doesn't recognize his face.

"What is your name?"

"Nyx Ulric, Majesty," He bows low, hand over his heart, "I was assigned to the residential detail three weeks ago."

One of Cor's hires from the citizens that now live in the Citadel, sprawling offices and conference rooms converted to apartments for those with nowhere else to go as the Wall continued to shrink and offer less and less protection for the outskirts of Insomnia. Refugees her Council suggested she turn away. Her heart had not allowed her the thought.

She knows now that was the right decision.

"Nyx saved me!" Noctis pipes up, but his voice is muffled as he doesn't pull himself out of the crook of Aulea's neck, "from the mean snake lady."

"Snake lady?" Cor blinks. Then he pales. "Gods..." He looks to Nyx, who nods.

"Marilith," He says with a frown, "Still up there, too. It was looking around his quarters for him, I think. He'd hidden under the bed until he saw my uniform and we made a break for it."

Reckless, but not stupid. He knew when to fight and when to escape. He also seemed to have a way with children. Aulea looks up and wonders, only for a moment, what Regis would do in her situation.

"How would you feel about a promotion?" She asks. Nyx blinks at her.

"Your Majesty?"

"I'm serious." She stands, holding Noctis close despite his quickly growing body, "You've proven you can handle yourself, _and_ can think on your feet. You'd be assigned to Noctis directly." She looks at her little boy, who blinks back at her. "...It's clear he needs it."

"Your Majesty," Nyx breathes, "I..."

"You'll be compensated for the extra danger and hours on the clock," She says before he can say no, "And your family would be well provided for."

He smiles at her, a rueful quirk of his lips.

"With all due respect, your Majesty," He tilts his head a little, "I was going to say yes anyway." He looks at Noctis with fondness in his eyes, and Aulea knows she has made the right decision. "He's a good kid."

"Yes." She says, brushing hair out of Noctis' eyes. She tweaks his nose, making him giggle. "He is."

Nyx opens his mouth, doubtlessly having questions, but then he stops. Everyone in the courtyard looks up as sky seems to rumble. At first it sounds like thunder, but then the iridescent sheen that has always clung to Insomnia's sky begins to fade.

Without fanfare or cause, without warning or restraint, the Wall collapses.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A single light goes out; the world is ever darker for its loss. Lucis prepares for war.

"Niflheim?" Aulea asks, eyebrows somewhere in her hairline, "Niflheim was behind the attack on the Citadel?"

"Yes, Majesty," Cor hands her another clipboard, pictures of half familiar faces clipped to arrest records. "Several staff members were found to have received Niflheim coin in exchange for opening service entrances or smuggling explosives to the upper levels." He shakes his head, lips curled in distaste. "We suspect they're after the Crystal."

"If Niflheim wants the damned thing so badly," She hisses, "Let them have it!" She smoothes out the wrinkles in her skirt with one hand, feeling a headache begin to take root as her Crownsguard pull on her magic for aid in holding back the monsters at the new wall that is still being built. "It's of no use to us anymore."

And better to let their blasted Emperor deal with the blighted Draconian still hiding in its core. They'd be a match made in the Beyond for certain. 

"And in exchange?" Cor's calm voice pulls her back. She purses her lips, trying to remember that he didn't spend years fighting the Nifs alongside his brothers-in-arms to give up so quickly. She unclenches her fist from her skirts once more. 

"Peace. Without them banging on our wall every five seconds."

"Niflheim will never give us peace, Majesty," Cor retorts as they sidestep a knot of children headed for a courtyard, ball in the hands of their leader. Her thoughts turn to Noctis, sequestered away with Nyx, Ignis, Gladiolus, and Nyx's young sister Selena. Children should not be locked away in rooms for their own safety. They should be free to play in the sun, to scrape their knees, to throw balls through windows. She shakes her head.

"They will have what they want," Aulea says, gathering her skirts into both hands as they take the stairs to the throne room. "And the Beyond take them should they break a _deal_. I'll draft a treaty tonight."

"As you will," Cor says dutifully. She can read the lines around his eyes, knows he hates this plan, and hates that she can't do anything about that. She must focus on her kingdom, on her people. They deserve better than to be trapped in the Citadel like this, packed in like fish in a can. She takes a breath, swallows her desire to apologize to his old wounds, and moves on.

"Where are we on finding out more about the Accursed?" She asks as they walk. Cor inclines his head with a grimace.

"Not as far as I'd like," he replies, "The Hunters have been seeking the Tombs and their archives with Cid and Weskham, but the books are old. All we know for certain is that King Izunia _had_ a twin brother, but there is no record of him to be found in Leide."

Beside the first king and yet struck from the record. Aulea frowns, pensive. A death in early childhood, perhaps? Or a scandal in older years. The time of King Izunia Lucis Caelum was over two thousand years ago, in a time where the Old Wall was the city's first line of defense, when the Oracle actually communed with the Gods. There is no one left alive to ask, and though Shiva has granted them aid she does not trust the Goddess as far as she could be thrown. 

Maybe Sylva will know more, she thinks to herself. Then she frowns deeper because Sylva has not answered her letters in months. If only the remaining network of communications towers had ever reached past the borders of Lucis. This would be simple if she could just _call_ her friend. 

"Majesty," one of her Crownsguard interrupts her thoughts as they come to the door to the throne room. The poor man looks harried, eyes lined with fatherly concern. She blinks. Is that...blood, on his otherwise pressed dress shirt? "I'm very sorry, Majesty, but there is a young girl calling herself Lunafreya requesting an audience with you. She says she hails from Tenebrae, but--"

Cor gets the doors mere seconds before Aulea can knock them off their hinges. Elemancy sings beneath her skin, an instinctive defense of a child as she runs, her heels clicking on the marble beneath her as she takes the side door, stumbles past two of the unfilled Council chairs, and stares over the railing. 

Months ago, Sylva had sent photographs of her children with a letter. They had spoken of someday, far in the future, joining their lines in matrimony. Ravus had a kind smile and a nose much like the late King Fleuret, but Lunafreya...

Even with blood splattered across her face, even with her body seemingly more bandage than princess, Lunafreya Nox Flueret looks almost exactly like her mother.

"Lunafreya!"

Pale blue eyes snap to her. Aulea runs for the stairs, drops the elemancy, and takes the steps three at a time. The nearer she draws, the worse Lunafreya appears. She is bloodstained and soot-caked, her pale blonde hair chopped short around her ears. Her eyes are lined with red, but even as her nine-year old body trembles, she tries to drop into a curtsy. Her knees almost give out; Aulea thanks Shiva she reaches the poor girl before she can drop. Lunafreya leans into Aulea's touch as the queen steadies her, hands upon her shoulders, with a hiss. She's cold as ice.

"Lunafreya," She says more calmly than she feels, "What happened to you? How did you get here?"

Lunafreya shakes her head, an age of wisdom in her baby-cheeked face. Etro, she's just a child! How has she made it across the sea, across the world, on her own? Where is Ravus, Sylva, her retinue? The thoughts turn spirals in Aulea's mind as Lunafreya gathers the strength to speak. When she draws breath next, Aulea can hear it rasp.

"Tenebrae has fallen," She says in a voice that still rings across the throne room despite the rawness to it. She sways forward, body finally beginning to give in to exhaustion, but her eyes are clear. "Queen Sylva Nox Flueret is dead."

Aulea's heart stops.

"Niflheim has taken Tenebrae," Lunafreya says, her eyes on Aulea's, "And they march on Lucis next."

Then she collapses against Aulea's chest and goes still. Heart cleaving in two, Aulea scoops up the slip of a girl and turns around. Cor is halfway down the steps, close enough to have heard Lunafreya's words, and has gone pale. There is no denying what has to come next.

"Bolster the Wall," Aulea tells him as she takes the stairs up as fast as she can. Lunafreya needs help, a doctor, a miracle. She will not let this poor child die here. "And then prepare your finest for infiltration."

"To where," comes Cor's voice as she passes him, "Majesty?"

She turns, looks over her shoulder as she reaches the doorway. 

"Niflheim. The time for deals has passed." She looks down at Lunafreya's face and knows, no matter what, there can be no turning back now. Perhaps there never was. "It is time we fight back."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gods plan grinds to a screeching halt. The past comes to life.

Before Cor has returned from Niflheim, before Aulea can even draft a proper declaration of war, Niflheim sends a delegation. 

_Return Lunafreya Nox Flueret to us and be unharmed,_ they say, _She is of Niflheim now, not of Lucis._

Aulea stands in the throne room, her crown heavy upon her head and Clarus at her side, and tells them that she has no idea what they're talking about, that as far as she knew, little Lunafreya was safely home in Tenebrae. Perhaps they had best ask Queen Sylva instead?

Despite their harrying of Lucis they cannot admit to razing Tenebrae, not without a declaration of outright warfare, and these three diplomats do not have that kind of power. The delegation practically flees with their tails between their legs, without their prize and with a message for their Emperor that Queen Aulea will not bow to their whims. 

Lunafreya--Luna now, truly--is safely ensconced deep within the Citadel as the Niflheim men return to their airship. Aulea takes comfort in the knowledge that she will heal from her injuries, is awake once more despite a three day sleep, and that she is among friends with Nyx and his charges keeping watch. Here, she will be safe.

At least, Aulea hopes as much. When Cor returns with a five year old boy in his arms and news of just how Niflheim is creating its never ending flow of soldiers, she knows in her bones that no place will ever be safe again. Little Prompto will grow up in a war, just like Noctis and all his friends, just like newly born Iris Amicitia, and they may never know peace.

She curses Niflheim, wonders if this is Bahamut's doing for refusing his chosen path, and then wonders no more.

Over the next four years, Niflheim gives them no more quarter. Attacks rain down on the Wall, on her people. Daemons hound them at night, mortars bombard them during the day. A year into the fighting, when her squads of fighters come back with exhaustion in their eyes and the ribs of the children begin to show through their small rations, she looks at the captured Niflheim commanding officer and asks what it is his nation wants. Her pride means nothing compared to her people, after all.

 _To bring Lucis to heel,_ he returns as he spits at her feet, _And put and end to you dogs once and for all._

Aulea returns his body to his fellows and asks no more questions. She has a war to fight, a people to protect.

And so, they must leave. Though she wars with herself over doing it, she sends away the families first. Deep in the night they flee the Citadel, under the protection of the Crownsguard and Asteria's steadily growing Queensglaive. The staff are next, at Cyril's behest, until only a skeleton crew remains in Insomnia. The rest leave for Lestallum, Altissia, any city they can reach that is far away from the conflict.

Each leaves with Aulea's blessing of coin and her unending understanding, and each leaves with a burden lifted from their shoulders. Even so, she misses the patter of little feet, the voices of her people. Enough have remained to fill one arm of the Citadel, true, she thinks as she walks towards her throne one hot summer morning, enough linger long enough to become part of the Crownsguard or the Queensglaive--two such young women trail behind her at all times now--but the massive building still feels empty.

"Majesty!" 

At least Cyril has remained. She turns to greet her advisor, brushing away a loose lock of grey-and-black hair, but then her smile drops.

She has never seen Cyril look this harried. She steps forward, reaches for him.

"What has happened?"

"A Chancellor for Niflheim has come," He says, "Asking for audience with you. He says he wishes to end the fighting."

"That alone would not have you so panicked, old friend," She says as he takes her by the arm and begins to pull her along, "What's the matter?"

"He offers peace in exchange for Prince Noctis," Cyril finishes.

Aulea _runs_. She does not slow even as she reaches the throne room, knows that today Noctis--newly ten years old--had asked to sit in with her, to begin to learn from her what it meant to rule, and knows that he would have arrived ahead of her.

Her heart sinks as she steps into the throne room and he is already there, at the base of the stairs, with a man standing in front of him. Nyx is a step behind him, one hand on the hilt of his kukri blade and one hand on the boy-prince's shoulder.

"Sir," He says, "I won't ask again. Let him go."

"In a moment," the man says, and Aulea's heart leaps to her throat. The Chancellor of Niflheim speaks with an accent she cannot place, but he has hands on _her son_! He grips Noctis' chin with one hand, gently turning the boys face one way and then the other. Noctis' shoulders are tense, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. "There is something..."

"Sir," Noctis now says, his voice trembling only a little. Aulea is so proud of him, even as ice sinks into her veins, Elemancy prepared to answer her call if only Noctis was not in the line of her fire-- "Please. Let go."

"As soon as your lady mother arrives--ah." The Chancellor looks up at her and smiles. His eyes gleam gold in the morning sunlight, his hair a deep burgundy beneath his hat and the Lucis-black he wears. 

She has seen that face before, those eyes, that nose, in the portrait hall of all of Lucis' former rulers.

_"All we know for certain is that King Izunia had a **twin** brother..."_

"There she is."

Nyx does not take his eyes off his charge, off the threat, but Noctis tries to turn.

"Mother--" He begins, but Ardyn does not let go of his chin. Aulea takes the steps two at a time, straining not to reach for her boy.

"I will ask that you let him go now, Chancellor..."

"Ardyn Izunia," he says, flourishing his hat with his free hand, and Aulea stiffens. To be so brazen-- "Chancellor of Niflheim." He sets his hat back on his head, looks at Noctis again. "Do pardon the intrusion, your Majesty, but there was something I needed to be certain of."

Now pushed past his boundaries, Noctis makes a choked off noise. Ardyn cocks his head not unlike a curious chocobo, finally letting go and brushing hair from the young boys face. Aulea steps forward, but before Nyx can finally draw his blade Ardyn smiles. 

There's something oddly paternal about that smile.

"A true Lucis Caelum," he says softly, even as Noctis scrambles back behind Nyx, as Nyx pulls him close and shepherds him out the door, Ardyn turns his eyes to Aulea once more. "From true blood, it would seem."

Aulea holds her head up high. 

"So it would seem," She says. Before she can stop herself she draws herself up, grabs at a theory too frayed to be true, and draws on olden tongues, " _Frater_."

Ardyn Izunia--Ardyn Lucis Caelum--blinks at her once, twice, three times. 

Then he smiles again.

"Well. Far be it for me to be so rude to family, hrm?" He reaches up, removes his hat. "Let us speak, shall we? I do have so many questions."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aulea was/is grasping at straws, and had no way of knowing she was right. Ardyn? He's running his own game. Time will tell if the gods would have been kinder still. :3
> 
> Also, my commentary on Episode Ignis? Holy fucking hell they actually just did that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A discussion. Hope is to be held onto, tightly, fiercely, and with both hands.

Ardyn is the very picture of nobility and manners, raised with princely bearing and aged into the mindset of a king. He thanks the staff when they bring tea, allows himself to be searched for weapons without complaint, and keeps his hands to himself even without the threat of the Queensglaive in the room. He is settled, patient, calm.

And yet, Aulea thinks, and yet he is something more than human. The golden lights of Etro's blessing cling to him like fireflies on a summer night, death clinging to a man most assuredly alive. How he has lived this long, she does not know. Izunia Lucis Caelum, the founder king, was king nearly 2000 years ago. Anyone who once lived alongside him cannot still be alive. And yet, he has not denied her accusation, not called her words the ravings of a desperate woman. He sits across a small table from her, golden eyes gleaming.

"I will admit," he begins after stirring two lumps of sugar and a little dash of cream into his teacup, "You have caught me quite off guard. You know so very much about me, and yet I know nothing of you." He picks up his cup and almost toasts her with it. "How ever did you come to find me out?"

Aulea's hands tremble as she reaches for her own cup, no sugar, no cream. The china rattles until she can get a good grip.

"You have your brother's nose," She says. Ardyn stops mid-sip and stares at her. She gathers her courage, remembers what she fights for, and continues on, "And the name Izunia is an old name, Lucian in origin." She squares her shoulders. "No man of Niflheim would carry it with such pride."

She sips her tea as if they're simply talking about the weather, as if she's not staring Death personified in the face, and the room grows silent but for their breathing. 

Slowly, a minute ticks by. Two. Arydn lowers his tea cup.

"You _are_ a clever one, Aulea Lucis Caelum," he says softly. "The name is quite old indeed, and hails from Lucis. A little hamlet in what is now Duscae, to be precise." His eyes grow distant, perhaps haunted. "My dear twin...would that he could see his line now."

Aulea remembers the whispers within the Crystal, the Kings and Queens of Yore that had thrown their magic behind her when she faced Bahamut, doubtlessly at Regis' behest. When she looks at Ardyn now, she too has to wonder what they would think of this mess she has found herself in.

"I would hope he would be proud," She replies kindly, "But you would know him best."

"...So I once thought." Ardyn replies, coming back to himself. He looks at her again and seems to truly see her. "Tell me, Majesty. What do you know of the Prophecy of the Stone?" He asks her in that same soft tone.

"Enough," Aulea replies, teacup still warming her hands. "The King of Kings is to slay the Accursed and cleanse the Crystal of its blight to return light to Eos." The porcelian clicks against her wedding band, and she loosens her tight grip on the poor cup. "Sacrificing his life in the process. My son is the would be King of Kings, and I am willing to guess you are the Accursed."

Ardyn huffs out something that, in another life, could have been a laugh. Somehow it sounds more like a curse than anything now.

"The sorry end to a most sordid tale, but all true, my clever queen." He raises an eyebrow and sits back in his chair. He runs his thumb over the edge of his cup. "Lucis Caelum I was born, and Lucis Caelum I shall die."

With her son as the weapon. Aulea sets her teacup down before her tight grip can crack it. The Gods did something to this man, perhaps, casting him down from his family. It is his word and his word alone now, and she cannot trust it so easily. Not with something so important at stake. _Even so_ , she tells herself, _there is no one left to ask._

"I have no intention of allowing my son to die killing you, so if you wish this plan to go through you'd best just kill me now."

Ardyn blinks at her for what must be the fifth time in as many minutes, lips parted just slightly.

Then he laughs.

"No love lost between you and the Six, hm?"

"Me and mine owe Shiva a debt, but the Gods," She nearly spits, "would see my son sacrificed and my people wasted, all to clean up their own damned mess. If this is at all true, then you deserve peace, Chancellor, but I shall not see my son die to do it."

There's a glimmer of something in his eyes, something he can't name. Respect? Awe? She wants none of it. She wants her son to live into his teens, his twenties, to fall in love and grieve and _live_ until there is more gray in his hair than black and it is only because he has aged that way.

She does not want Ardyn's respect any more than she wants to outlive her child. If he sees that, if he understands that, he does not say. 

"And what if I were to tell you, Queen Aulea," He inclines his chin at her, a glimmer of respect beginning to strengthen in his voice, "That there were another way? That perhaps, simply perhaps, there is a way to end my miserable existence _and_ keep your son from perishing in the process?"

She tries to temper the hope in her heart, tries not to pin all her hope on this, on the words of a man who has lived beyond even the eldest catoplebas, and yet...she crosses her hands on her lap, clenching them tightly together.

"What if I were to tell you I would be willing to listen to this...possibility?" She inclines her head. "For the sake of conversation, of course."

"Of course." He tucks a lock of hair out of his eyes, contemplates something just over her shoulder, and then offers her a pensive look.

"Tell me," He begins, "What do you know of the Scourge?"

"It is an illness, of which there is no cure." There was a ward full of patients in the medical wing, and the only reason it is empty now is because they have all passed on. "It seems to spread by contact with Daemons and only the Oracle's magic can clear it."

Lunafreya is fourteen years old. The ritual to crown a new Oracle can only be done with the blessing of the Gods. Unless Shiva steps into the halls of the Citadel herself, Aulea doubts that will happen on Lucian soil. 

The line of the Oracles has, perhaps, died with Sylva.

"Also all true, but do you know the _source_ of it, hm?" He leans forward in his chair. "Where it all began?"

"The first Daemon?" She harbors a guess. Ardyn's smile is dark.

"No, my dear. It all began with Eos, Goddess of the Dawn, many many years ago."

He speaks with the air of a storyteller, one who has seen this tale come true. And though Aulea wonders at how much truth is in his words, she does the only thing she can.

She listens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon Ardyn? A complete and utter fucking asshole. Never denying that. Adamantus!Ardyn? Perhaps a bit less so. Sometimes all someone needs is to talk. 
> 
> Poor communication kills. Better communication saves lives. Can't say it saves any ideas of Adamantus being canon-compliant, though. Pfft.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A path is revealed. Time alone will tell if it is the one that should be followed.

Aulea arranges a trade with Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt of Niflheim the day after her discussion with Ardyn. In return for the halting of attacks on the wall of Insomnia and for the safety of her people in Lucis proper, she will secede all lands outside of the city of Insomnia to the Empire. 

In return for Ardyn joining her cabinet and the safety of Ravus Nox Flueret, she will give Niflheim the Crystal. They do not need to know that it has lain dormant the past three years, or that there is a would be God slumbering in its core. 

She doubts Iedolas' return agreement even had time to dry before he stuffed it into its official envelope and shoved it into the hands of a beaten, battered Ravus, but it is an agreement all the same. Watching Lunafreya, scarred and scared and sobbing, hold onto her brother with both hands as he weeps for the first time in she has no idea how long, Aulea tries not to wonder what Regis would have done in her stead. Would he have traded land for safety, tradition for life? She thinks she knows, but the answer curdles her stomach. She tries not to think of it.

She hasn't dreamt of him since the night of the fire. The magic of the Lucis Caelum line no longer whispers to her. Doubtlessly, it has chosen another. 

Ardyn says it is fickle like that as they watch three of Niflheim's artificial soldiers load up the Crystal onto an airship of their Science division. He says a great deal many things once he is a member of the Lucis council, once the Crystal is away towards Niflheim, and none like a single word of it. Most find it too hard to believe, but knowing what she does, Aulea does not question. She seethes, instead, watching as he paces the conference room and speaks with broad gestures of his hands. More than once, Cyril or Clarus have to duck, turning aggravated glances at his back.

In what is likely a telling measure of his character, Ardyn only smiles at them as he continues to talk. It is a grand tale, one that has been woven across generations of Kings and Queens. It is his word against all of Eos' written history, and yet...

 _"History is written by the victors, Aulea,_ " Her father had told her once, the words unknowingly echoed by Regis years later. Their voices ring in her ears as she listens to Ardyn speak, watches each of her trusted circle watch him in turn. 

Uncaring that Cor and Asteria both look ready to rip his head off at any moment, Ardyn tells them of being gifted with the ability to heal the Scourge, which blighted the world after a war among the Gods cast the goddess Eos into a pit from which none could return her. The Healer Prince, as he was known then, and the only one with the ability to survive the glut of the God's powers combined.

He tells them of how he was chosen to rule, to be the first king, the Healer King of Lucis, only to be cast down, cast out, like so much rubbish when it came to light that the Scourge had no real cure, that it could not be removed so much as _moved_ , from one host to another. 

He turns a wide smile upon them then, teeth stained with black and eyes weeping thick, dark tears. Aulea's blood becomes ice in her veins as she realizes that he has the entire ruling council of Insomnia in the same room with him. Predator golden eyes seek her out and there is a knowing, a bone deep feeling that churns in her gut, that if he wishes them harm or worse, they would be hard-pressed to stop him. Something warm uncurls in her chest, fights back the chill, as everyone leaps to their feet, draws their weapons in defense of one another. Before blood can be shed she scrambles upwards, slams both palms to the table and yells--

"Enough!"

Her voice echoes. No one lowers their weapons, relaxes their stance. Golden eyes gleaming in black sclera, Ardyn contemplates her. He inclines his head. She swallows hard. Would that she thought he could be killed...

"Everyone," She distantly hears herself say aloud in a voice far too calm for the situation, "please. Sit. Ardyn, if you would..."

His color returns, the marks upon his skin fade like water. He begins to pace again, but no one dares to duck or flinch away any longer. They all watch him with sharp, angry eyes as he continues his tale.

His solution, the one that does not hinge upon Noctis marching to his death, is surprisingly simple: Free Eos from her prison and banish the Scourge with her light. Otherwise, if it is allowed to go unchecked, it will spread like a plague and plunge their world into darkness. It is like something out of a fable, a tale told to children to ensure they pray and never turn their backs upon the Six.

Unsurprisingly, none of her trusted circle believe a word he has said. Normally quiet Clarus actually starts to yell as Ardyn stands on the opposite side of the table from Aulea, his golden eyes only on her. Clarus is going red as she raises a hand, gestures for him to be calm, to wait, and meets Ardyn's gaze.

"And where, precisely, is this Eos located?"

"In the depths of Pitioss," he returns, "A rather nasty little pit of hellfire in the mountains of Cleigne." He waves a hand in the air. "Full of all manner of traps and stumbling blocks, not to mention locked to all but the heirs of Lucis themselves."

"Then why haven't you gone in and done away with this mess?" Cyril asks acerbically, his weight shifted towards Aulea, "You _are_ of the line of Lucis, are you not?"

"A point to the gentleman for his knowledge of history," Ardyn grins, all white teeth this time, "but seeing as I was cast out, I am no longer of such a venerated house. No," he looks back to Aulea, "That honor belongs to one alone now."

The ice returns to her veins.

"Noctis."

Ardyn nods. That same glimmer of something she could not name from when he first told her half of this returns. It sits heavy in her stomach as he stands up straight, the very image of a modern scholar.

"Correct," He says, looking away when she makes a keening noise in the back of her throat. He looks from Cor to Clarus to Cyril to Asteria and then back to Aulea, all hint of playfulness gone. "The young Prince must enter the place alone, descend to its depths without losing his mind, and restore Eos from her slumber." He shrugs. "A tall order for anyone to undertake, let alone an untrained youngling."

Cor growls something about how the boy is barely ten, not even entering puberty, but Aulea's mind is turning elsewhere. She knows the prophecy to be true, one way or another. Bahamut's words still ring within her skull, and should this tale be a falsehood Noctis must be prepared to face _that_. Regardless, she does not think Niflheim will leave them in total peace for long. The crystal, Regis once said, powered only the Wall. The magic of the line of Lucis was through the Ring and the spirits within.

She still has the Ring, hidden in her nightstand for a time when Noctis sits the throne. As such, its magic remains, waiting for a proper user to call upon it. She cannot use it, cannot warp as she saw Regis do--and thank Shiva for that since he first warped into a tree atop her head!--but Noctis...she closes her eyes and prays that she is doing the right thing.

"Then train him," She says over Cor's grumbling. Ardyn looks at her, and she does not flinch away. "If this plan hinges upon Noctis, then make sure he is capable of doing it."

Of killing Ardyn, should the unthinkable come to pass. She holds Ardyn's gaze for a long moment, the entire world seeming to hold its breath, before he smiles.

"Thy will be done," He says with a deep bow and a hand pressed to his chest. "Your Majesty."

And then he walks from the room, shutting the door behind him. For another moment, Aulea forces herself to breathe. It feels as if she has just gone three rounds with a Behemoth and come away unscathed, but with the beast alive behind her. She must keep moving, must keep them all moving. 

"Cyril, Asteria" She says before the sound of the door clicking shut has even finished echoing through the room, "Check the archives for anything that can verify his claims. Cor, seek out Weskham and Cid," Her eyes narrow at the doorway. "Make doubly sure we missed nothing in our search for the Accursed."

"Aulea," Asteria says quietly, "What of what he said? Accursed or otherwise, you don't truly believe his tale, do you?"

"I don't know," Aulea replies, gathering her skirts and beginning to stand. She needs to check on the Flueret children, ensure that Ravus is alright. Needs to see that Nyx understands Ardyn will be teaching Noctis but that makes him no less a threat. 

She needs to see her son. 

"But?" Clarus prompts her even as he stands up at her side.

"But," And she looks across the table where Ardyn lay his hands, no marks upon the marble to prove he was ever there, "our options are limited. We will make of this what we can and proceed from there." She looks to each of them in turn, sees the determination in their eyes, and nods firmly.

"You each have your orders," She says in a tone more firm than she feels, "Now go."

Each bows, a hand across their chest.

"Yes, your Majesty."

(When she finds Noctis an hour later, there is a hint of nervousness that clings to him even as he beams at her, even as he tells her of how Chancellor Izunia is a distant cousin and can use the warping magic his father could, and he said he'd teach Noctis and isn't that great!

She smiles at her son, a ten year old bundle of energy, and tries to squash the instinct to bundle him up, take him away from Ardyn's knowing look, from Nyx's barely contained protective rage. 

_Yes_ , she tells him, _It's certainly excellent indeed._

Watching as Ardyn begins his first lesson, Aulea cannot shake the feeling that, one way or another, this will lead to heartbreak.

She just hopes it isn't Noctis' heart that is going to break before this all over.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pitioss Theory was soundly debunked by the devs, I think (I don't really follow the goings on of what's canon and what's not) but still makes for an excellent Plan B that _somehow_ still keeps in line with some of the lore we did get. Any changes are, of course, my own.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time has run out. The days of summer come to an end.

Noctis wishes he'd never gotten out of bed today.

The training hall is full to the brim, the ring of live steel against wooden targets only slightly by bodies pressed up against the walls, legs tucked up beneath them as the youngest still within the Citadel scrub the harvest clean, a cold breeze seeping in through the open windows and drafty stone.

Given the circumstances, Noctis doesn't think it's a whining thought that he wishes he was scrubbing carrots instead of his training today. Normally he enjoys his lessons with Ardyn, the magic of the Lucis Caelum singing in his blood every time he calls on a sword or warps across the room, but today is just--Ardyn looks so smug about sending him flying today!

"Step, throw, and--yes, good!" Ardyn grins, his teeth gleaming in the light of crystalline shards all around them as Noctis warps, clings to his sword so as to not fall from thirty feet in the air, and warps again to land in a roll. "Remember to keep your knees bent on landing, princeling."

"If he remembers that," Gladio's voice chimes in from the wall nearby, in-between the liquid slosh of brush against carrot in a bucket, "I'd be amazed--ow! Selena..."

"Be nice," Selena chimes in, washing potatoes with Luna, who watches Ardyn more than her hands. Standing next to her Nyx grins from where he's speaking to Ravus, the eldest on watch for something that's never shown up before. "You're no better at heavy landings."

Iris, barely thirteen and elbow deep in carrot water, giggles. With practiced ease, Noctis ignores them. For the past eight years, every lesson has been like this. Whether it's swordwork with Gladio and Uncle Clarus, politics and leadership with Ignis Uncle Cyril, self defense with Aunt Asteria, Luna, and Uncle Cor, or fire-arms with Prompto under Uncle Cid's grumbling tutelage, his friends are always there. His mother has said the reason they go with him is to support him, but he's caught her muttering that this will save them time training his council when the time comes.

He doesn't like to think about that. The idea of taking his mother's place some day.

"Amusing as watching Noctis fall many times is," Ravus says, pushing back against Luna attempting to whack at his free hand with her scrub brush, "I must borrow Ardyn for a moment."

Everyone looks at him; Ravus bringing news is never good. Noctis stands up straight, but Ardyn waves a hand.

"Back to work, everyone." He says it so casually, striding across the training hall to take a clipboard from Ravus' outstretched other hand. "You too, princeling. Warps should be much faster than that."

Noctis heaves an aggravated sigh. Ignis' lips quirk up as Prompto laughs and hits the button on his stopwatch, starting the clock over again. With motion that's now more muscle memory than clear thought, Noctis throws his blade into the heavy target and _pushes_ off after it, right into the in-between space of darkness and smoke it's always taken him.

Suddenly something cold grabs his ankle, squeezes hard, and cuts off all his momentum. Caught like a fish on a line Noctis cries out as he jerks to a halt and hangs upside down, staring at a figure in ancient battle armor. They're see-through and the only reason he can see them at all is because they're glowing, with steam wafting off every inch of their body. Their hand around his ankle is like ice but all he can do is stare.

 _"Chosen King,"_ they hiss at him through the faceplate of their helm, voice echoing and rattling through his skull, making it impossible to clearly gather his thoughts as they continue, _"Fulfill your duty! Slay the Accursed!"_

He's heard that name before. Ardyn had once used it to describe himself, when he and Aulea had sat Noctis down just after he'd turned thirteen to explain to him the real reason why Ardyn now lived in the Citadel, what all the days of lessons upon lessons truly meant.

This being, this figure in Lucian armor, means to have him kill his teacher? Noctis narrows his eyes.

"Piss off!" he shouts at them, and the figure draws back in startled alarm, "If you think I'm doing your job, you're crazy!"

They tighten their grip on his ankle. Ice becomes fire, burning his skin, his bones; he cries out, tries to reach up, to get them to let go, but he can't reach! There is no one to help him and he can't freaking reach!

_"Get your hands off my son!"_

Something hits the spirit in their armor from behind; their grip on Noctis' ankle fails and he drops hard, twisting out of the in-between on pure instinct. The training room snaps back into view in the same second his sword clatters short of its target and he is falling, falling--

"Noct!"

He lands in a roll despite his pained ankle, hobbles back to his feet as red-tinted crystalline shards chime all around him and then--

"Down!" Ardyn's voice whipcracks around the room. Chaos follows.

Nyx leaps at him, pulling Noctis down to the ground, covering him with his larger body. In the same instant there are scattered shouts from the others as they dive, buckets scattering water and vegetables across the floor, Ignis yanking Prompto down as Gladio shields Iris and Selena with his own body, Ravus covering his sister from any sight at all, but even as Nyx tries to bodily shield him Noctis can see what they can't.

The spirit has followed him _out_ , a glowing blade in their hand, and has aimed it at Ardyn. Ardyn stares unflinchingly back, his entire Armiger twirling around him.

" _Salve, frater_ ," he says in the old tongue, a sneer crossing his face. "Been a long time, hm?"

The spirit--Ardyn's brother? Izunia? The Founder King?--shouts in anger that rattles the windows, the lights, knocks the targets off their nails. Ice shoots down Noctis' spine, his breath catching in his throat, as the spirit charges right at Ardyn!

"Watch out!"

With a muffled thump, Ardyn pulls a shield from his Armiger. The spirit bounces back off of old metal, and in that instant Ardyn has them. He dismisses the shield, pulls on a sword, and _throws_. A second cry rattles through the hall as the spirit is sent flying, Ardyn's sword through thier middle, to be pinned to the wall like an insect on display.

He does not move, waiting, watching. Noctis holds his breath, counting the seconds. Five. Ten. Fifteen. 

He gasps for breath and the spirit fades away, leaving all of them to try and recover their wits. Nyx gets to his hands and knees, manhandles Noctis into a sitting position. Across the room, Gladio and Ravus sit back and look at the sword stuck half its length into the stone and wood of the wall.

"Ardyn!" Luna calls as she sits up, her eyes flashing with rage, "What was that?!"

Staring at the place where a ghost once was, Ardyn does not answer right away. Then, slowly, he looks down at Luna.

"...I think you are well aware, my dear." He says in a small voice that Noctis has never heard him use before. He turns his head to look at Noctis, and there's an unreadable look in his eyes that makes his stomach flip. "Are you hurt, Noctis?"

He never calls Noctis by his given name. But when Noctis can only shake his head, Ardyn nods and heaves a sigh. He looks back up to his sword caught in the wall.

"Good," he says, "for we have no more time to wait. The promised day has arrived."

Suddenly, Noctis is really wishing he'd never gotten out of bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the sake of flow, I've had to skip past eight years of Ardyn being the worst-best uncle to Noct and his peers. Maybe someday I'll write those shenanigans, for Ardyn is still Ardyn even if he's turned his mindfuckery setting back down to 1 or 2 instead of 10 or 11, but for now? Homestretch! 
> 
> also yes Ravus kept both arms because NO RING FUCKERY. God this canon.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A course, once undertaken, cannot be turned away from.

"You swore to me!" His mother shouts, nearly at the top of her lungs. Noctis shifts his weight on the plush chair Ardyn dropped him in, exchanging an awkward look with Nyx standing steel rod straight beside him. Neither dares to look ahead, where Ardyn stands on one side of the hardwood desk in his mother's office and Aulea the other, the portrait of Noctis' father looming over her head. As soon as they had been sure that Noctis had been unharmed, Nyx and Ardyn had bustled him here, explained the event in the training room to Aulea, and then the yelling had started.

Noctis isn't sure what's scarier: his mother yelling, or the lingering after-image of Izunia's ghost that appears every time he closes his eyes.

"Yes," Ardyn returns in a venomous hiss, " _I_ " swore to you, Aulea Lucis Caelum, _I_ swore. I made no promises that his forebears would do the same!" Ardyn puts his palms onto the desk, getting into Aulea's space. "Clearly we have worn out their patience."

Noctis chances a look up at his mother's face. She's pale, a stark contrast to the black of her gown, with dark shadows beneath her flashing eyes. 

"He's too young!"

"He is eighteen, and has been marked since infancy!" Ardyn sweeps an arm out towards Noctis, who quickly looks away rather than face the Behemoth in the room. "How much longer do you think this can wait?"

"As long as it takes! I will not send my son off to some godsforsaken hell hole when he is not ready--"

"You know the alternative." Ardyn cuts her off. "And if what has happened today is any measure, so do the spirits. This will not be the last time they interfere."

Aulea pulls in a deep breath through her nose, shoulders drawn up as if she wants nothing more than to scream, to throw Ardyn from her office. Noctis tightens his grip on the chair as Nyx shifts his weight, hand shifting towards the hilt of his blade.

But then Aulea looks at Noctis, stares with an inscrutable look in her eyes, and lets her breath go. With a whump of air and shifting cloth, she drops back down into her chair and buries her head in her hands. As if they have come to a wordless agreement, Ardyn nods.

"Now," Ardyn draws back to his full height, but there is a slump to his shoulders Noctis isn't used to seeing. "I will secure us transit. You are welcome to come along, my dear, but we leave no later than dawn tomorrow."

And that is that. Ardyn turns, meets his eyes, and that's when Noctis' stomach settles somewhere near his ankles. The ghost of his ancestor wanted him to kill Ardyn, to fulfill a prophecy some two thousand years old. But even with eight years of training, he's not sure he could if it came to that. 

No. He knows he can't. Ardyn has had nearly as much a hand in raising him as his mother. He can't raise a blade against that. Ardyn seems to know that, because his eyes are sad even as he tries to smile.

"Pack light, princeling. We shan't be gone overlong." he says to Noctis, then strides from the room. There are squeaks and the clatter of footsteps as the others scatter from their eavesdropping positions, and Nyx rolls his eyes skyward. A flicker of a smile dances across Aulea's face, hidden beneath the hand she uses to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"Nyx, will you..." Aulea gestures after Ardyn. Nyx looks at Noctis for a moment, then nods and bows to his queen. He pulls the doors shut behind him, leaving Queen and Prince alone in the office. Hands clutching around the end of the chair, Noctis looks up.

He loves this space. It's his mother's space, where at least for a little while the outside world can be shut out so it's just them. He's spent many a day curled up in the plush chairs, reading a book and asking questions, questions she would answer without hesitation no matter what she had been doing at the time. Some of his most precious memories are in this office.

Seeing the struggle on her face, the frown and tension around her eyes, he'd trade all of those just so she wouldn't have to look so sad.

"Mom," he starts, but she shakes her head.

"Eight years ago," she cuts him off with a quiet voice, not raising her head from her hands, "I exhausted every resource I had left to make sure he was telling us the truth. Your uncle Cor went all the way to Cleigne and back to make sure this wasn't some game."

They both know it's not. She told him as much five years ago. Noctis stands up and makes his way to stand across from his mother. She looks up at him then, reaching for his hand. Her fingers are cold, but her grip is strong even as her hand trembles. 

"If I could take your place..."

He doesn't know if he could survive losing her. Not now. He squeezes her hand and tries not to think of it. "Yeah," he shrugs a little, trying to be casual, "But you can't. I've got to do this, right?"

It's what he's been training for since he was a kid. And yeah, he thinks to himself as she wipes at her face, he's more than a little scared right now considering how she's acting, but...if there's no other option, if the only other option is one he can't do, then...he'll do this.

He has to do this.

"When did you get so wise?" She asks, pulling open a drawer beside her with her free hand. From within, she pulls out a small box that she holds up to him. "Here. This might be of some use to you now."

"What is it?"

"Open it," she says, and she sits back to watch as he lets go of her hand to pry it open. His mother has always been honest with him, never this secretive, this worried. His stomach churns, acid hot in his belly, as he gets the little box open and stares at its contents.

A thick black ring rests in the box, a single gleaming shard of crystal set between prongs in a design he can't quite make out. Noctis blinks, looking from the ring to the portrait above the desk. That same ring rests on his father's middle finger, a stark contrast to his gleaming silver wedding band beside it.

"This is...."

His mother nods.

"It was your father's. And his father's before that, and his father's before that, and so on and so forth." She adjusts her silver crown with one hand. "The Ring of the Lucii has been passed down from forebear to heir for nearly two thousand years. Your father would have given it to you when you took the throne."

Something passes over her face then, a flicker of nausea, but it's gone before he can ask. Holding the box in the palm of one hand he reaches for the ring with the other, fingers touching cold metal and colder crystal that gleams with an inner light.

It burns like ice, like the hand around his leg from less than an hour before. 

Quick as a flash Noctis drops the box to her desk with a clatter. The crystal shard glows bright as a flare, but quickly goes dim. Maybe he's seen too many old horror movies with Prompto, but that? That is so not cool. He looks up, meets his mother's eyes, and shakes his head.

As if that was the answer she was waiting for, Aulea slams the box closed and tosses the thing back into her drawer, slamming that closed as well.

"When did you get so wise?" She repeats as she stands up. He doesn't have an answer for her, even though he so desperately wants one, and when she comes around and opens her arms he nearly falls into them. 

"I had a good teacher," he says quietly. She tightens her grip on him, and for just a moment they're only mother and son, not queen and prince. For just a moment, there is no prophecy, no death, no ancient ghosts wanting heads on platters, it's just them. 

The moment can't last. She gives him a squeeze and then pulls back, reaching up to cradle his face in her hands. When had he gotten taller than her? He can't remember. He doesn't like it.

"We've done what we can to prepare you," Aulea's voice wavers, "And yet I fear it won't be enough. I don't know what awaits you."

Death, probably, but he doesn't say that. He looks up at the portrait of his father looking regally down at the pair of them and wonders, just for a moment, what Regis would have done if it had been him here and not Aulea. 

It doesn't matter. He reaches up, clasping her elbows, and squeezes her arms.

"I'll come home." He tries to smile at her, but the fear in her eyes has put ice in his veins.

Not once has he seen his mother this terrified, not even on the day Ardyn first arrived. He never wants her to look this scared again. He tries a little harder to smile and thinks he manages, because she smiles back at him and rubs a thumb across his cheek.

"You'd better," she says, "Or I'll drag you back from the Beyond and ground you until you're eighty, young man."

Somehow, he has no doubt she would manage that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into the depths of Hell itself. One never treads the realm of the dead alone.

Pitioss, or at least its exterior, gleams in the setting sun. He's known the name of this haunted place for the past five years, been training for it for the past eight, but even with all of his knowledge just the sight of it makes Noctis' stomach churn.

Luna and Ignis would say something about that being the shadows that somehow cling to each of the tiny windows above the structure, a covering that blocks all light from going inside. Prompto, Iris, and Selena would agree with him and cling to one another as bird cries echo off the canyon walls all around them, trembling and wanting to go home, even while Nyx and Gladio would want to charge in at his sides and end this.

Nyx had tried, but Ardyn had nipped that in the bud.

"Only members of the royal line may enter here, Ulric," He'd said, shoving Nyx to sit on one of the bench seats in the back of the airship they'd used to get from Insomnia to this Godsforsaken place, "If you try, you'll end up a pile of ash on the ground."

"You're lying," Nyx had shot back, but Noctis had been unwilling to risk it. Though Nyx had protested--and rather loudly at that--Noctis had ordered him to stay back and wait. 

That had been almost two hours ago, when the sun had been up and hot on the back of Noctis' shirt as Ardyn led the way through the canyons to the ruins themselves. Now they stand at the precipice, and Noctis is unsure how to take the next step forward.

"Are you sure you can't come with me?" He asks, staring at the lift that will take him down. Ardyn heaves a sigh, causing Noctis to look up at him.

"Three things, princeling," Ardyn begins to tick off on his fingers, "The attemptee must be mortal,"

"Which you're not."

"Of direct descent from the Line of Eos,"

"Which we both...are..."

"And," he finishes with a flourish and a reach to tweak Noctis' nose as if he's eight and not eighteen, "Capable of grand feats of acrobatics. I am many things, my dear boy, but a spring chocobo is no longer one of them. No," he leans back, something oddly dark in his eyes, "if I could, I would. But I cannot, and so you must shoulder the weight."

Noctis thinks of his mother, her eyes lined with the past fifteen years of ruling Lucis, her hair more gray than dark, her shoulders bowed and tiny beneath his arms as he'd hugged her goodbye just this morning. If she could do this for him she would. He knows that. She'd even offered over breakfast. She's done so much for him, had been willing to stand up to Gods for him, but this...this time, it's on him. He takes a breath and steps onto the elevator.

"If I'm not back in a day," he begins, but Ardyn cuts him off with a "tut" and finger wave.

"I shall deliver the news to your lady mother, I assure you," Ardyn sweeps his hat off and holds it to his chest in a solemn yet amused gesture as he begins to disappear from sight. "But I'm sure you'll be back before then, oh King of Kings."

And then he's gone, out of sight, as Noctis descends into hell itself.

There is no other way to describe the interior of Pitioss but hell. Ardyn had described it once, an amalgamation of Solheim technology and godly desire, but no words could have ever done it justice. Noctis stares as he walks along sandstone pathways, ducks under glowing red spikes, and comes upon imagery no doubt meant to evoke the Six and perhaps even Eos herself.

 _There's a story here,_ he thinks as he cautiously makes his way through, _like the paintings in the Hall of the Citadel tell the story of the line of Lucis from Izunia to Regis._ The only difference is he has no idea how to interpret this story with its stone effigies and magical traps. Ardyn has told him the story of Eos and her betrayed, Uncle Cyril has vetted it as best he could, but this...

None of it makes sense. Why would they go through so much trouble to lock away whatever was left of the Goddess of the Dawn? The Six aren't _all_ bad; his mother has a little shrine to Shiva carved out of white marble in her room and there's usually a stick of incense lit in offering, and his mother wouldn't do that if Shiva was bad, but...maybe there's more to this than he's seeing. 

Maybe that's how the world always is. 

Noctis is so caught up in his thoughts that he doesn't see the crumbling bit of floor above a pit of spikes until it's too late and he is falling, falling, falling--

Pain, white hot, all-encompassing. He opens his mouth to scream but there is no air, no breath, no life. There is nothing but the pain, the agony of his demise upon this ancient trap. What logical thought remains flees, turns to his mother a thousand miles away. He can see her face, the lines there, the loss in her eyes. This will add to it, so much so that it isn't just his fall that makes his heart hurt.

He wishes he'd told her he loved her before he left, even if she already--always--knows.

She can't hear him apologize, but he does so with his last breath.

Then he lands on the stone, chest burning from within, and hangs suspended between life and death for just a moment. There is a hand on his head, a half-familiar face staring back at him.

 _"Get up,"_ his father says, his voice echoing through the hall and Noctis' skull in equal measure. _"Noctis, you must get up."_

"Dad--" he gasps, lungs remembering how to function, heart remembering how to beat, "How--"

Regis smiles at him. His spectre, glowing faintly in the dark of Pitioss, is already fading. Each beat of Noctis' heart makes him fade faster. Noctis reaches out, tries to grasp smoke.

"Wait!" He cries out. "Dad!"

Regis disappears into crystalline shards, pulled to where Noctis cannot follow. He remains on the stone for another minute, then two, then five, before he can finally gather the strength to get to his knees.

His father is somehow with him. His mother, his friends, Luna, they're all counting on him to come home. Ardyn is counting on him to see this through.

He can't fail. Not here. Not now.

With a deep breath, Noctis lurches to his feet and starts walking deeper into the darkness. Pitioss throws all it has at him, all its twisting corridors and flaunting of gravity's rules, until it has no more traps, no more tricks, just a plunge into darkness so deep his flashlight can't hope to penetrate. 

Noctis stares into the abyss and hesitates, boots scraping across stone so old no one has been here in ages. He knows what he has to do, knows there is no turning back, and yet--

 _"I am with you always,"_ Regis' voice whispers through the air, fading into nothing more than an echo. There are hands on his shoulders, offering support, pushing him forward, reminding him that he is _never_ alone.

Lucis Caelum he was born, and Lucis Caelum he shall die. But not today. No, not today.

Gritting his teeth, Noctis leaps into the pitch beneath him. He lands on bended knee, nearly laughs at the thought, and catches himself with both hands upon the shoulder of the Goddess. For a moment, a heartbeat, he stares into a stone eye nearly the size of his head.

From this side, Eos looks like his mother.

The thought is fleeting, a momentary passing, before it is replaced by sheer panic as the stone begins to crack away beneath him. His hands slip away as the stone is replaced by something bright, something like light itself, and the statue begins to move.

He falls backwards with a cry, unable to see as the chamber is overtaken by light itself. He can't see, can't warp, can't get out--

He lands on something warm, feeling oddly protected for just a moment. Years later, when he tells his children and their children of this day, he will swear to all he holds dear that someone had pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead, even though he had been alone. 

In the moment, he can only feel the warmth of the light.

"And so the Chosen King has fulfilled his duty, outwitting even the Gods themselves."

Noctis slowly opens his eyes, sure he's gone blind, but--no. He's outside again. The sun is rising. Ardyn is standing in the golden light, a dark mist rising from his skin. He lifts his head as Noctis hobbles closer, but does not turn around. 

"I knew you could do it," He says in a voice that is so very soft. He keeps his face to the steadily rising sun, the mountains cast in shadow all around them. Noctis stares.

"What's..." The wind blows in his direction. A waft of rot and decay make him cough and cover his face. When it clears, he stares at Ardyn. "What's happening to you?"

"Ah, that..." Ardyn lifts a hand, staring at his fingers. He has never hesitated before. Not like this. Noctis tries to swallow back the lump in his throat. "Well, I've outlived any human alive. The Scourge was all that kept me going, you see, and with it vanquished..."

Noctis' heart sinks to his ankles. He sways, almost topples. This can't be happening.

"You're dying."

"A couple of thousand years overdue, but yes," Ardyn does not sugarcoat things for him. He never has. Instead he turns around, offers Noctis the fondest smile he's ever given despite the black stains upon his face and teeth and says, "Do take care of yourself and your lovely mother, hrm? You deserve all the happiness this life sees fit to give you."

Noctis stares through blurring vision as the sun continues to rise. Ardyn's form is fading out, blurring around the edges. Noctis tries not to cry, tries to smile instead, but he knows it doesn't reach his eyes.

"I'll miss you," He says through the lump in his throat, "...thank you."

Ardyn smiles. 

"Walk tall, my boy."

And then he's gone, nothing but a cloud of dust in the morning breeze. 

(When Nyx makes his way up the path to the ruins an hour later, Noctis is still standing there, face to the sun. Tears have made trails in the sweat and dirt on his face, but he is very much alive. 

He is very much alone. Nyx does not ask for an explanation, nor does he need one.

"Noct," Nyx says instead, reaching for him, taking his weight when Noctis' body threatens to collapse from exhaustion. "It's time to go home."

In the light of the morning sun, Noctis takes a shaky breath of clean mountain air. 

"Let's go home.")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no way in hell that any Regis, AU or Canon or whatever, ever truly left Noct's side during his adventures. He was always there, somehow, someway. 
> 
> Also happy late holidays to all my readers; epilogue coming soon.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sun shall rise again.

When Noctis returns home in the dead of night, Aulea is waiting for him. She waits in the courtyard as the airship touches down, waits as the hatch opens and she catches sight of Nyx, of Noctis hobbling down the ramp, and then she waits no longer.

She gathers up her skirts in both hands and runs to her son. It doesn't matter that he's already got three inches on her, he's still her baby, and she takes him into her arms with only the bustle of cloth and a soft sound of surprise from him to speak of her speed.

But then he reaches up with both arms and he clings to her, back bent and legs giving out. She carries them both to the ground, her skirts billowing in the grass, and doesn't care when he starts to sob into her shoulder. She rubs his back, cards her fingers through his hair, and hums a lullaby beneath her breath. He clings tighter still, and she looks up at Nyx when Ardyn does not step up behind the boy he has taken such a shine to. Nyx shakes his head, hands clasped at the small of his back.

"Chancellor Izunia passed away this morning, Majesty," Nyx says softly. Noctis' arms tighten around her. "In the light of the morning sun."

It is done, then. Aulea nods her understanding, then presses a kiss to Noctis' temple. He smells of smoke, of death. His shoulders tremble, his weight leans far too heavily against her for him to be entirely unharmed, but he lives. She looks up at the stars, tears welling in her eyes, and thanks all who listen for that. 

She holds her son and lets him cry, heaving sobs that speak of grief she understands far too well. She lets him grieve for as long as he needs, and only when he moves does she pull away to look at his face, his red-lined eyes. He does not look at her, but rather at the ground between them.

"How do you..." He asks her quietly, hands clutching at hers. "How do you move on after you...after..."

He can't finish. Aulea swallows the urge to scoop him into her arms once more. Instead, she tightens her grip on his hands.

"It takes time," She says softly, "But..." To live well is a blessing, she swallows back. Ardyn had been his own brand of oddity, but he had stayed. He had helped her son in ways she would never have been able to. It is because of him that Lucis still stands, even if tensions remain, and it because of him that Noctis has come home. She squeezes his hands until he looks at her with soft blue-grey eyes. 

"Never let anyone tell you how much time is enough, Noctis. Not even me. Even I do not get a say in how long this will take."

He makes a sound not unlike a snort and finally squeezes her hands in return.

"Guess you're not queen of everything, huh?"

She scrunches up her nose at him.

"I'm still queen of your bedtime, young man," She begins to stand, and though her back aches, she pulls him with her. Nyx finally steps off the airship. "Now come along--he wouldn't want you mourning him in the grass."

"No," Noctis says with something fond in his eyes as they walk to the bright light of the Citadel's halls together, "He'd want us to get extremely drunk instead."

Drink until dawn and damn the consequences...oh, she's too old for that anymore. But at the least the sun will still rise tomorrow, so perhaps...

"Perhaps a toast instead," She smiles a little. "To a good man indeed."

(In the years that followed the passing of Chancellor Izunia of Lucis, Niflheim would come under fire from within. Led by a young mercenary and her merry band, the reigning giants would be toppled. The new Empress Aranea Highwind would be quick to extend hands of reparation, first to Tenebrae, whose surviving people would return to crown Ravus Nox Fleuret their first King, and then to Lucis. Her lands would be returned to the Queen, and though it would take years, Aranea swore to undo the damage her nation had caused.

When it was all done, when the MTs had been laid to rest and reparations enacted, Aranea undid the Empire and returned it to her people, establishing a democracy.

 _"People should rule people,"_ she would say when Aulea asked her once, at the former Empress' engagement party to Ignis after years of working together to fix the damage Iedolas had caused, _"And I make a lousy Empress anyway. Too used to skewering things."_

Nine years later, Aulea would step down from her throne as Queen of Lucis. She would crown her son the reigning King of Lucis, and take her place in the history of the great nation as one who had outwitted Gods and mortals alike. Her portrait would hang upon the walls of the Citadel, nestled between her husband and son. Her last decree, passed into law by King Noctis Lucis Caelum CXV, would be to hang a portrait of Ardyn at the beginning of the line. There it would remain, a memorial to the first, forever more.

Decades hence, surrounded by family of both blood and heart, Aulea Lucis Caelum would pass on into the Beyond, content in the knowledge that the world would be safe for generations to come and unwilling to bargain for more years in the sun.

After all, she had a reunion of her own to get to. And it wouldn't do to keep her beloved waiting any longer.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that! I may return to this verse in time (there are ardyn-shenanigans to do! and everything post that.) but for now this is a finished one. Thank you to all my readers, I hope you enjoyed, and see you on the flipside!

**Author's Note:**

> Initially from [the Kinkmeme](https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/3016.html?thread=2040264#cmt2040264), but I kind of diverged from the initial prompt so. /shrug? 
> 
> Adamantus comes from Adamantum, what Google tells me is the Latin word for "diamond". Figured it would fit our Queen. Also yes; Aulea has Etro's Eyes that Noctis was referenced to have in Versus XIII, no I am not about to let that go.


End file.
